Traditional event mediation solution contains functionalities like collection of usage data from network elements, aggregation, conversion of data format to unified format, correlation, etc. This all has been ready for years and most likely will be used for years to come.
Traditionally event mediation solution has been evaluated based on following technical criteria: how many network element interfaces it can support, what are the data formats it can read and produce, what is the processing performance of the system, what kind of process management functionalities it provides etc.
Only very rarely event mediation solution has been evaluated from business point view: how much money it can save, how much new revenue it can create, what are the new business models it enables, what kind of value-added information it can produce for operators business processes (e.g. customer care, billing, fraud, statistics).
Actually, business point of view was not very interesting as billing models where simple, stable and source for billing data was always known. Usage information was used also for other than billing purposes but the purpose and content of usage data was well known and well defined.
Shortly said: traditional event mediation is based on well-known sources of usage data, standard data formats, static billing models and relatively simple processing requirements. The main purpose of event mediation has been to collect data from the network, convert it to business support system format and deliver it to selected destinations.
Patent publication U.S. Pat. No. 6,449,618 discloses one real-time event processing system. The principle idea of U.S. Pat. No. 6,449,618 is that the system comprises a real-time analysis engine (RAE), which component provides the real-time feature in the whole system. The publication concentrates on cost control issues of calls made by subscribers. The system presented in the publication is very one vendor oriented and it has a poor flexibility, no modularity and no vendor independency.
Patent publication U.S. Pat. No. 6,405,251 discloses another solution, which concentrates on IP (Internet Protocol) networks and use of correlation and aggregation functions in IP networks.